Must I take A business class to learn about disclaimers or gaurantees or deposits and such or is there anyone willing to share how they do this or dont you worry about it? See my previous post on pricing in Michigan, I am very dedicated to running a sucessfull taxidermy business without cutting my self short, but Mark in last post figures $18 pr 3 hour for standing pheasant, I figure: 1hr for taking bird in paper work and B.S. another 3hr to skin, flesh,wash,borax,tumble, then another 3hrs to mount,inject,caulk,preen,put on post,paint, preen again, Then another 1hr to clean up and disposal, call cutomer B.S. some more and I figure I should get $30 pr hour flat, Thats
8.hrs start to finish $240
$28 materials =$268 But i charged $180 Is Mark Right?So will anyone please send me their pricing list? Thank again, MIke
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Would anyone send you a price list when as I said before you can click the "taxidermist" link and see web pages for taxidermists from every state, your state alone has 48 listings, every one I looked at has price lists, many with disclaimers. If your just now starting and already refer to interaction with your customers as B.S. then you've got problems. Man you sound like you want to run an assembly line, if your gonna do it for a living I know that good business sense is required but it sounds to me like you are completely missing the most important and satisfying aspect of the ART of taxidermy.
Michigan prices are different from shop to shop because they are different people. Prices reflect ones quality in craftsmanship, years of experience, and a strong clientele built by customer loyalty and the taxidermist integrity. In addition, BS with the customer does not pay you anything. If you are in it for the money, you wont have time to chat. You have to be fast at putting things together if you are going to have a shop. If it takes you all day to do a pheasant, you better not quit your day job and do taxidermy in the spare time.
I could never go full time, as my speed is slow. As Don Said, you are trying to do production work by the hour and that has no time for being artistic too. I can get good, but not good and fast. You have to decide what you can charge and be profitable for your self. Other people cannot tell you what to charge. Mark gave you a formula that works for him, if you work like Mark, it will work for you. However, you do not even look like Mark or have his talents.
the information given to you is correct. You may not want to hear it but it is correct. Here's what I'd do. Check the websites of taxis in your state, then find a happy medium. As you mount each of these animals, find out how big a pain and money loss/gain they are and adjust your prices accordingly. I have a friend in PA that gets $500 for a deer and people scoff when I tell them $350 (NC), so every area is different. Become known for the quality of your work and when people start to see the quality, then go up on your prices.
Mike,
I get $250 for a gamebird/duck based on a simple formula of materials plus time, with a profit margin. My pricelist is available at www.initaxidermy.com
Hugh
Mark here again. I guess you misunderstood my post. This was just a set of bogus figures you plug in what works for you. Like Mr T said everyone is different. I run a full-time studio with employees and I need to watch every dime. I want to know where every cent goes that's why i've broken down my pricing fomula. If it works for you great, if not trash it, and find something that does. Just trying to help. In my opinion most business fail because of poor business skills, and some business classes certainly can't hurt. Now remember it's just taxidermy not rocket science. Just put your head to doing every piece as close to perfect as you can and the rest will follow.
I can't imagine being so anal as to expect to "account for every cent" I spend in my shop. I see it on here all the time where people think taxidermy is something that fits neatly into a little square box. And I keep saying it: YOU ARE A CRAFTSMAN NOT A SKILLED TECHNICIAN. The guys who sell bric-a-brac at the craft shows never EVER get paid what their time would be worth if they were an x-ray technician or an certified auto mechanic. I get $175 for a pheasant and I'm satisfied with that. If I were Jim Kimball, I'd probably charge 3 times that, but I'm not. Using you logic, the first deer you turned out should have cost $25,000 to have covered your overhead and all the supplies you had to have on hand before you took it in. Then every deer after that got reduced I suppose? Taxidermy remains a love and if you don't have that emotion when you're doing something, it shows in the end product. You've been given some exceptional advice here by those guys. You can take it and live with it or you can ignore it. After all, you only have yourself to please anyway and if you outcharge your peers, it'll only give them reason to raise their prices which makes us all better.
...Time with the customer. Well, I have to disagree with the above comments about you not charging for the time you HAVE to spend with the customer. And with the comment that you can't spend time with the customer..."you'll be too busy".
First, if you were working for someone else, spending time with a customer, you WOULD be getting paid for it. It's called customer relations or salesmanship or whatever tag you want to hang on it. It has to be done and you are absolutely right in figuring it in your price. If you don't figure every hour you spend in the shop, including the "customer relations" time, clean up, maintainance on equipment, ordering forms and supplies, AND time on the phone answering calls from customers and potential customers, you'll never make it. Anyone not figuring that time spent is doomed to failure. it's all part of this business and many others.
Second you will have to cut your time on the project, wherever you can. This is the difficult one, because you don't want to sacrifice your quality. This probably means that you will have to work on you skinning and prepping efficiency, maybe by working on more that one bird at a time. Based on your apparent experience level from you previous post, you've got a way to go here. Based on that alone, I wouldn't say you're ready to take the leap to full time, anytime soon at least. I'm sorry, those numbers just don't qualify you at this point.
Over all, Mike, after reading your posts I think you have a great handle on what you need to figure. Mark gave you great advice, you just have to plug your own numbers and situation in to it.
The only thing we can't comment on is the quality of your work. In this competative world of taxidermy, that can make or break you. You'll have to compare your work and prices to your competition and go from there. I think you've got the business aspects figured out very well. It' the intangables, that we can't answer for you, that you're still looking for...Good Luck